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by wolfsan11



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Capgras Syndrome, Fear, I've been wanting to write this for ages and s3 finally gave me the chance, M/M, Psychological horror??? ish, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Suspicions, Team as Family, Trust Issues, clone shiro theory, they're trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/pseuds/wolfsan11
Summary: A scream wants to roll its way up Keith's throat but he bites down on it, presses viciously on the panic bubbling in him. This can’t be right, it can’t be. His lungs threaten to cave in as he takes a shallow breath, stretches a crooked smile across his face and turns away from the team. He focuses on the glow of the holograph rising from his console, clamps a hand over his mouth as fear inches through his bones.There’s nothing to describe what he feels, only that he’s a hundred percent sure of it.Whoever this person is, it isn’t Shiro.





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**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one day and oh man, I hope it's not confusing...enjoy :D

At first, Keith doesn’t even notice it.

In his defence, he’d been a little too busy hauling Shiro’s weakened body out of the Galra ship, holding him close and babbling promises that he would never let him go. After a quick trip in the cryo-pod later, Shiro looks better already, albeit with a scruffy chin and long, unkempt hair.

Keith thinks he’s never seen anyone look more beautiful. He savours every moment that he can blink and not have this dream reset on him; every moment he realises that Shiro has really returned.

Now, Shiro sits quietly in his room and a part of Keith registers how uncomfortable and . . . out-of-place Shiro seems. Keith sees hunched shoulders and grey eyes dark with defeat, and he wonders if Shiro had imagined he’d survive to see them again. If he’d given up somewhere along the line.

Keith’s reaction to that, of course, is to love him all the harder.

Shiro’s alive, and he’s back and he’s not okay, but Keith can’t bring himself to examine it too closely. He’s afraid of what he’ll find; of what Shiro has seen in the time he’s been away, and what’s been done to him. Of how that’ll manifest in all new night terrors and panic attacks; a man taken and broken one time too many.

Keith’s not ready to see the love of his life go through that again. There’s a distance between them, wider than ever after all that’s happened, but Keith knows that when it comes down to it, and if Shiro will let him, that he’ll be by Shiro’s side to help him through it.

Until then though, all he has to offer is his own brand of reassurance, so he tells Shiro what he so desperately needs to hear. He tells him how things had changed and yet stayed so different; how much Shiro’d been missed, how much the team needs him now. It’d been a hellish time without him, and they’d been coping, but it had been so _different_. With Shiro here again, there is hope that everything can go back to how it used to be.

Shiro graces him with a wry grin as he asks, quietly, how many times Keith will do this. How many times he’ll have to save Shiro. How many times it’ll take, before it’s over.

“As many times as it takes.” The answer tumbles easily from his lips and Keith firmly stands by it. As many times as it takes, he says, because that’s what he’s ready to give for Shiro. And it feels like things might just click back into place, this nightmare finally over.

Then, Shiro arrives at the bridge with a haircut, a fresh shave and a wide smile for the team. Keith’s heart plunges towards his stomach, veins freezing cold under his skin. He stares at that face, fully visible in the bright lights of the Castle Ship now. He waits, holding his breath, but . . . no. He’s not seeing things after all. He’s not wrong, is he? He blinks, over and over, praying for the image to align right, for his eyes to wash away his momentary doubt, because if this isn’t—this can’t—he won’t—

A silent scream wants to roll its way up his throat but he bites down on it, presses viciously on the panic bubbling in him. This can’t be right, it _can’t_ be. His lungs threaten to cave in as he takes a shallow breath, stretches a crooked smile across his face and turns away from the team. He focuses on the glow of the holograph rising from his console, clamps a hand over his mouth as fear inches through his bones.

There’s nothing to describe what he feels, only that he’s a hundred percent sure of it.

Whoever this person is, it isn’t Shiro.

 

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. Maybe for someone else to bring it up, so he doesn’t feel like a paranoid maniac. Maybe for Shi— _not_ -Shiro to slip up and make an undeniable mistake. It’s a rare occasion where he hopes he’s desperately wrong; he’s not quite ready to be hit by the impact of what he suspects to be true.

Because if this isn’t Shiro . . . then where’s the real one?

It makes his chest ache, a sharp and hard blow to the heart. If this isn’t Shiro, then the real one is still out there somewhere, perhaps fighting his way back to them . . . or still in Galra hands. The possibility of that is so ugly, so _terrible_ , it twists his stomach to even think it. He wants to reject it outright, but he knows he can’t afford to do so.

He tries to think it through instead; on how it’s possible for Shiro to be someone else. He has to stop soon after, when his mind goes to the Robeasts and the strange powers of the Druids. What limit is there in this adventure of theirs, what is the line where reality meets sci-fi, _where_ does it stop and turn into something he can’t _handle_? Because this is rapidly approaching the boundaries of what he can take.

Not-Shiro, in the meantime, smiles and banters with the team, easing into their new dynamics with a hesitant patience. Some days, he’ll turn towards Keith and give him that _look_ , the one Keith recognises facially as fond, but brings nothing familiar to mind. He knows what it means, but he can’t connect it to all his memories of Shiro looking at him in the same way.

There’s something off about it; an angle, a shadow, a gleam, somewhere.

He almost wants to step back and let this not-Shiro take his position as the Black Paladin, let him carry that role. The risks of it weigh on him—handing Voltron straight into the wrong hands, for one—but he’s not sure what to do anymore. All he knows is that Shiro is the Black Lion’s rightful pilot, and if anyone can tell the difference, it’ll be her.

When the chance does come, he takes it. He lets the Shiro look-alike take his place and pleads that an answer will arise from this.

The Black Lion rejects Shiro, and Keith holds his breath, wondering if this is it. If the scheme has been ruined, if this is the proof he can pin down and tell the others to certify what he’s saying is absolutely the truth.

Except Shiro calls for him over the comms, asks him to hurry to the hangar, and of course he goes; he always has. The pull between them is strained, but the voice over the comms hits him just right _._ It sounds like Shiro. _His_ Shiro.

Keith has that brief walk down to the hangar to wonder if he’s had it all wrong, if he’s just been seeing things.

But once he gets there, it strikes him all over again. He takes one look at Shiro, waiting for him by the Black Lion’s feet, and he wants to recoil. No, he’d been right the first time. That’s not him; it’s not, it _can’t_ be. It has his skin crawling in revulsion as Shiro gives him a sad, sheepish smile.

“I guess she wants you,” Shiro tells him, and Keith can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for this man who’s just lost his bond with Black, because _it’s not Shiro._ His eyes flit over the look-alike’s features and he can’t tell who he’s looking at anymore. The jaw is right, the eyes are that same stormy grey, the scar and the cheekbones and the forehead and the hair, but there’s an odd slant to it all, and he can’t—

Keith sucks in a deep breath and nods, forces himself to set a comforting hand on not-Shiro’s shoulder. He presses his fingers together to squeeze down, to reassure; to anchor himself. He nods at the stranger who has taken Shiro’s place, gives him his best grin.

“I’ve got this,” he tells him, and clambers into Black without waiting for a response. Just a little longer, he thinks. He hates the charade, but it’ll only be for another while.

He hopes the real Shiro, wherever he is, can hang on that long.

 

* * *

 

“I’m proud of you, Keith,” Shiro says, whole-hearted and tender, and Keith feels anxiety claw at his gut, lungs heaving as they struggle to draw in air. There’s the sensation of Shiro’s eyes on him, and he has to remind himself that this face is not as it seems. The soulful eyes and sweet smiles . . . mere imitations of what Shiro is really like.

He bites the inside of his cheek until it’s bloody, tells himself he can endure this , but it always breaks apart at the thought of Shiro. His Shiro, alone and afraid, captured once more by the very ones who had ripped him apart and sown him back together, purely for their own amusement. It’s enough to send him reeling.

One slip-up. That’s all he needs. One slip-up from this impersonator or maybe someone else will notice and mention it first or maybe—

Maybe, maybe, maybe. He can’t figure out a plan, and time just keeps sweeping through the grasp of his palms.

 

* * *

 

It comes to a head eventually, when he can no longer stand it.

Keith rips off his helmet as he storms onto the bridge, still panting from running all the way up here from the hangar. The other Paladins are already there, miserable after the latest beating they’d gotten from fighting Lotor and his generals. But he barely pays them mind, seeking out the imposter in the Black Paladin’s skin. Shiro is stood at the front of the room, concentrated on the screen in front of him. Keith glares at the solid length of his back.

“Who are you?” he demands angrily. Everyone spins around to look at him and Shiro turns with them, eyes narrowing slowly in mock concern.

“ . . . Keith?”

“Answer my question!” It comes out as a hiss, enraged and hurting. His knees are weak, ready to buckle beneath the weight of the burden he’s been carrying so long. No more though. Shiro just looks at him, his hands going up in helpless placation. Keith wants to scream at him, but the anger is already draining fast in place of a horrid despair.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’re not him. You . . . tell me where he is. Tell me what you’ve done to him.”

“Done to who—”

“To SHIRO!” he shouts, throwing his helmet down with a loud _crack_. Everyone flinches, the stark white of their wide eyes visible as they stare at him. Keith realises belatedly that he’s shaking, and he curls his hands into tight fists to hide it. He’s surprised to feel the thickness of his Bayard in his hand. He’d thought he’d put it away but—

There’s a shift in the corner of his vision and his eyes snap over to Pidge, who stops moving and freezes on the spot.

“Keith,” she begins hesitantly, and Keith relaxes a little, because surely _Pidge_ has seen it. Surely she’s figured it out.

“Listen, just calm down a sec and we can figure this out,” she says, and Keith swallows hard enough to scrape his throat raw.

“I’m . . . Pidge, what?” he asks, confused when she eyes him cautiously, looks at him like he’ll attack _her_. But that’s . . . That’s ridiculous. He’s not going to . . .

“Just put your Bayard down and we’ll talk.”

Keith shakes his head, turning to meet each of their gazes. They’re all rigid where they stand, staring at him with the same look of alarm. Allura and Coran are at the helm with Hunk, whose jaw hangs open as he watches the scene unfold. Lance is at his console, hand at his thigh holster as though ready t-to—

To summon his own Bayard.

The blood drains from Keith’s face and he thinks he has never felt colder.

“Wha—what’re you guys doing?” he rasps.

“Look, Keith,” Hunk begins quietly. “You’ve been acting kinda weird since Shiro came back . . . You were the one who was the most desperate to find him, but now that he’s here, you just. Got so distant. What’s going on man? Talk to us.”

Keith staggers back, their faces becoming half-distorted in his increasingly panicked haze. They . . . they don’t see it after all?

“Come on, guys. Y-you know that’s not Shiro. Right? You must have seen it,” Keith pleads desperately. They look at him with careful, imploring faces, like they’re deciding on how best to corner a scared animal. Lance murmurs an oath and takes a step back, like he’s too unnerved to remain still.

Keith grinds his teeth together, jaw clenching as his heart beat rises. They don’t believe him. What is he supposed to do?

The imposter is just standing there and Keith’s fury and desperation rises, because how dare he? How dare this fake, this-this _clone_ come in with Shiro’s face to try and take his place? To try and trick them all and act so innocent while doing it?

A part of him wants to heave his sword at the fake and be done with it, but then . . . He’s not sure if he can kill something with Shiro’s face, no matter how fake it is. It’s a weakness he has to admit to himself, but they can at least capture him, right? If only the others would just _listen_ to him.

“Keith,” the imposter says suddenly, and Keith inhales sharply, aiming his glare at the man once more.

“I don’t want to hear anything _you_ have to sa—”

He realises his mistake too late.

There’s a flurry of movement and Allura is there suddenly, arm raised towards his head. Keith hears himself cry out in shock and it’s by sheer instinct that he gets his sword up to deflect the blow. But of course, it’s not enough for her brute strength. There’s a sharp burst of pain at the back of his head and his vision goes dark.

 

* * *

 

“—not uncommon apparently, I’ve read up on a few—”

“—acting weird all this—”

“—but how do we—”

“Guys. G _uys_. He’s waking up!”

Keith comes awake slowly, blinking heavy eyes open against the soft blue light he recognises as belonging to the med-wing. He winces at the ache in his head, realising he’s on his back on one of the beds. The other Paladins are crowded around him and he wonders vaguely if he’d been hurt from the last battle. Which was . . .

“Hey, you with us?” Someone asks, and Keith squints up at them, trying to remember how he’d gotten here. It hits him the moment he sees Shiro. He scrambles up with a strangled gasp, causing everyone to pull back quickly or risk smashing their foreheads together. He lunges out of the bed and puts his back to the nearest wall, breathing hard.

No one says a word until Keith breaks the silence himself.

“You knocked me out,” he whispers, glaring at Allura, who looks uncomfortable at the accusation.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Keith. But you weren’t ready to talk this out and we needed you calm.”

Keith can’t believe what he’s hearing, but it’s like every one of them is in agreement, looking at him in solemn solidarity. He lets out an angry huff, incredulous at what this has come to.

“I was trying to save us!” he protests. “There’s a doppelganger right in front of you and you want to talk about me not being _calm_ about it?” He gestures at Shiro with a jab of his hand. Shiro just stands there, silent and miserable, saying nothing to defend himself. He looks stricken, fatigue draining him until he’s left gaunt, bones sharply defined against thin skin and circles under his eyes. He looks less like Shiro than ever.

“Keith,” Pidge cuts into his contemplation with a sigh. “He’s _not_ a doppelganger. Listen, I know you won’t like this but just hear me out, okay? I think you might be suffering some kind of . . . delusion. You remember that battle when you hit your head—”

Keith rears back at that, anger flaring up.

“What the hell, Pidge, I am _not_ deluded!” he snaps. “How do you know for sur—”

“The question is how do _you_ know for sure?”

That brings him up short. Keith opens his mouth, then closes it again, wavering in his resolve. How does he get them to listen? How does he explain to them that the man standing before him and the man he’d known for the most important three years of his life are not the same person?

Well. Perhaps that’s just the thing.

“Because . . . because I know him. I know him too well. On the surface, this guy might have every trait that Shiro did, replicated. He might behave exactly like Shiro, but . . . there’s something _off_ about him. You can ask me over and over again but it won’t change. Please. You have to believe me. He is _not_ Shiro,” he finishes, with a hoarse whisper. He doesn’t look up as the silence extends, on and on and on.

Finally, Pidge sighs.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” she says, her voice small like it hurts her just to say it. It cracks him apart, those three words. He looks around the room, and sees only the same frightened faces, looking at him like _he’s_ the mad one, like there’s something wrong with _him_. He shudders and lets his gaze fall to his feet, immobile at the realisation that . . . not one of them believes him.

There’s a grim apology sitting at the tip of this tongue, but he doesn’t let himself look at her or at any of the others as they slowly begin to file out. He remains still, keeping his breathing paced, trying not to break as the footsteps fade away until there’s only two of them left in the room.

“Keith. We’ll figure this out, okay? Trust me,” Pidge says, and it’s a fierce promise that rings hollow in his chest, because he’s sure now that figuring this out will not work in his or Shiro’s favour. “Things will be alright again, you’ll see. You’ll be fine.”

Keith closes his eyes. He hears her walk away, only for her to pause beside the other person in the room. He hears her murmur reassurances to the doppelganger as she pulls him away, giving him the same promises about ‘fixing’ this.

Long after the footsteps fade away, Keith opens his eyes and stares unseeingly at the empty room. The door is shut, and he knows he won’t be getting out anytime soon. His Bayard is gone along with his dagger, and there’re no other weapons here to arm himself with. No exits he can use to his advantage. It’s him alone, versus his own team and a man who calls himself by the name of his long lost lover.

“That’s not Shiro,” he whispers to himself, again, eyes burning at the realisation of what it means for the actual Shiro.

“That’s not him,” he whispers, and he knows it to be true.

“That’s not him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Capgras Syndrome – Delusional misidentification. Seen as a rare biological disorder that emerges commonly from brain trauma, it’s characterised by the victim believing that someone close to them has been replaced by a double. Occasionally, they might feel their voice over a phonecall sounds right, but remain adamant that the person themself is a doppelganger.
> 
> Just thought I should mention, not everyone with this syndrome is in anyway violent, it all depends on their relationship with the person who they believe is a doppelganger. In Keith's case, his reaction is a factor of being in a war zone in alien skies. What do you even trust then? :D


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